Joshua Gomez and Zachary Levi in CHUCK - Season 5 - "Vs. the Frosted Tips" | ©2011 NBC/Jordin Althaus

NBC’s CHUCK, now in its fifth season in its new timeslot on Fridays at 8 PM, is the brainchild of creators/executive producers Chris Fedak and Josh Schwartz. The title character, played by Zachary Levi, started out as a nerdy employee at the Buy More who was transformed into an inexperienced super spy when his brain became filled with the Intersect, a wealth of espionage knowledge that also (at the end of Season Two) included fighting skills.

Over the years, Chuck fell in love with and finally married his spy handler Sarah, played by Yvonne Strahovski, and befriended grumpy fellow spy John Casey, played by Adam Baldwin. Joshua Gomez plays Chuck’s best friend and fellow Buy More worker Morgan, who only recently learned of Chuck’s secret life.

Big changes came at the end of Season Four. Chuck, newly wealthy, bought the Buy More and started his own spy agency, but lost the Intersect – which was inadvertently acquired by Morgan. Now Chuck is in the position of acting as handler to his buddy, who is even more inexperienced than Chuck was in the same circumstances.

This is Part 2 of a three part interview.

ASSIGNMENT X: Can you talk a bit about Chuck taking over the Buy More?

CHRIS FEDAK: One of the things about the Buy More is that it’s not connected to the spy world. It’s become a story unto itself. So we were excited by the idea of Chuck going to the Buy More, owning a spy company that doesn’t do too well, which is awesome. The Buy More is really the profit center. So it’s important to the show that [it includes] Vik [Sahay as Buy More employee Lester] and Scott [Krinsky as Buy More’s Jeff] and Mark Christopher Lawrence [as Buy More’s Big Mike] and Ryan McPartlin, who’s Awesome [Chuck’s brother-in-lawDevon, nicknamed Captain Awesome]. I would buy whatever he’s selling.

AX: This season, will we see any more of Linda Hamilton as Chuck’s mom or Timothy Dalton as the nice Englishman who thought he was a Russian arms dealer?

FEDAK: I’d love to bring Linda back. She’s wonderful. I don’t know exactly who we’re going to be able to bring back, but we’re going to bring back as many people as possible. And there is no one more amazing than Timothy Dalton.

AX: What about Bonita Friedericy as General Beckman, who used to give the team their missions?

FEDAK: Oh. Bonita is certainly a part of the show. Even though General Beckman’s part has changed this season, she’s still very important to the show.

JOSHUA GOMEZ: I love me some Bonita.

AX: When you started CHUCK, did you ever think, “Well, somebody else will be the Intersect, Chuck will wind up married to Sarah …” How much of your storytelling has surprised you?

FEDAK: Everything I’ve done has been charted out well before it happens. [laughs]. Actually, no. We create a lot of stuff as we go. One of the great things about our show is the discovery of working with our actors. Working with Josh and with Zach and Yvonne is they bring so many things to the show. The moment we saw Zach do kung fu, it was, “Wow. We can build a show around that.” When we saw how much fun it was to bring Gomez into the spy world, we can build stories around that. By the time you get to Season Three, Four, Five, it’s about that discovery of watching the show get bigger and more elaborate than anything you could ever have imagined. That’s the beauty of it. Television is about collaboration. That’s what we do.

GOMEZ: Yeah. I find it even more crazy. For me, I remember being in New York with Chris at the upfronts for CHUCK Season One and that was an amazing experience. It was at a bar somewhere. “Chris, this is crazy and I can’t believe this, we’ve just done the pilot and we got picked up and we’re going to make this show.” I remember going, “What do you think? What do you think our chances are?” [laughs] And I don’t know if you remember this, but Chris, you were like, “Ah, you know what? I’ll tell you what. Five seasons. I’m not greedy. Give me five seasons and we can do whatever.” And you know what? Five seasons. How crazy – I remember that. In today’s television market on a genre show that’s about nerds kicking ass, I go, “We get five seasons.” And it’s pretty cool.

FEDAK: It’s amazing. There’s nothing better than making a show with these guys. Josh Schwartz is the epitome of the top shelf. We love telling the stories.

Joshua Gomez, Amy Pham and family at the World Premiere of TANGLED | ©2010 Sue Schneider

AX: What’s been the most fun thing for you to write?

FEDAK: The gunfights, the spy stuff, Adam Baldwin [as Casey]. I got married before the show began and I think I’ve really come to love those little character moments. Season One and Season Two, it was very much an action show, it came out of an action/comedy sensibility, but I think our small human moments between characters, between Gomez and Alec, between Chuck and Sarah, those are the moments that make a show. And I get most excited about that. Yvonne trying on wedding dresses in Season Four. Or Casey and Morgan in the morning, watching their routine.

AX: Near the beginning of Season Two, you, Josh Gomez, had said, “If Morgan ever finds out the big secret about Chuck’s spy life, it’s going to be a different show.” Do you feel that’s true now?

GOMEZ: Yeah, I do. Zach and I have this chemistry that was originally cast into the show as well, so I think when I found out, it opened all these avenues to explore that stuff. It was the final puzzle piece of that equation. Who knew that Casey and Morgan were going to be these partners? Here are these two odd-couple partners. As much as Chuck and Sarah were this dynamic duo, here’s Casey and Morgan going, “Wait a minute, this is kind of fun, this is kind of cool.”

FEDAK: I don’t know if there would be a show if we hadn’t had Morgan learn about Chuck’s spy life. It’s been such an opportunity for us. The Morgan/Chuck relationship had to grow. Romance was always part of the show, but bromance is part of it, too. If we didn’t have Morgan know about Chuck’s Intersect life, I think that would have been a gigantic problem for the show and we wouldn’t have been able to tell the stories we wanted to tell. The same for Sarah Lancaster last season [as Ellie eventually learned that Chuck is still a spy]. It was very important that people would learn about Chuck’s spy life, and that was something that we really wanted to build to and make an important thing. And I thought the way Zach directed [“Chuck Vs. the Beard”] years ago, great episode, but also allowed for the show to grow

AX: What was the reaction like for CHUCK at Comic-Con this year, with the fans knowing this might be the last year?

GOMEZ: It’s insane. Every time we go down to Comic-Con, we feel like Bruce Springsteen. They’re absolutely amazing. We were in a three-thousand-seat theatre and I heard they turned away five thousand people. It’s madness.

FEDAK: It’s really daunting. I think that when we’re all up there on stage and realize how emotional we are. I don’t have human emotions for the most part –

GOMEZ: It’s true. I’ve worked with the man for five years.

FEDAK: I don’t have those feelings, and I think that we were all struck by how great this felt, but also, we’ve been doing it for five years now, we’ve had an incredible experience, and it’s very much tied around Comic-Con, very much tied around the people who are our fans, and for us to be up there and to get a standing ovation at the beginning of it and at the end is awesome. We love our fans and we make the show for them.

AX: Do you have anything coming up that we should know about besides CHUCK?

FEDAK: Letting go. Listen, the thing about the CHUCK cast is, right now, out there, no matter when the show ends, be it this season or Season Twenty-Three from now, this cast will be gobbled up in a second. Every executive producer out there is salivating with the idea of working with this people. It’s an amazing group.

AX: Is there anything either or both of you would like to say about CHUCK?

FEDAK: Watch. We just want to do as many as possible.

GOMEZ: Yeah. I want to do more. I’m bittersweet. I’m so glad we got a real ending, but I don’t want it to end. I know it has to, but I would have never asked for it to end.

FEDAK: I want it to go on forever, too.

Click on Link:Exclusive Interview with CHUCK co-creator Chris Fedak and co-star Joshua Gomez – Part 1

AGREE? DISAGREE? LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD! COMMENT BELOW

Follow us on Twitter at ASSIGNMENT X
Fan us on Facebook at ASSIGNMENTX

Click on Link: TV Review: CHUCK – Season 5 premiere – “Vs. The Bearded Bandit”

Click on Link: TV Review: CHUCK – Season 5 premiere – “Vs. The Zoom”

Click on Link: DVD Review: CHUCK – THE COMPLETE SEASON 4

Click On Link: Zachary Levi talks about what Chuck and Morgan would think about TRON: LEGACY

CLICK on the link for AX’s exclusive interview with Bonnie Friedericy on CHUCK

CLICK on the link for AX’s exclusive interview with Linda Hamilton on CHUCK

CLICK HERE for AX’s exclusive interview with actress Mekenna Melvin

CLICK HERE for AX’s exclusive interview with RYAN McPARTLIN

CLICK HERE for AX’s exclusive interview with YVONNE STRAHOVSKI

CLICK HERE for more exclusive CHUCK reviews and interviews from ASSIGNMENT X

 Article Source: Assignment X
Article:Exclusive Interview with CHUCK co-creator Chris Fedak and co-star Joshua Gomez – Part 2

Related Posts: